Points Of View

6 Chicago Women Assess Decade's Sisterhood

As we stand poised to meet the second half of the decade, women have more choices than ever before. But are we any closer to true equality between the sexes? What do you, a woman of the '90s, think?

The Tribune posed that question to six Chicago women prominent in various fields. Their no-nonsense approach to today's most pressing women's issues and their cautious optimism for a brighter future help define the meaning of being a '90s woman.

Q-What does being a woman of the '90s encompass?

Gitlitz: In my field, it means being healthy, strong and fit. Increasingly, women in their 50s and 60s are working out, lifting weights, enjoying more physical and mental strength than ever before.

Fuller: As the workforce has grown older, women have begun expressing their own sense of style. Those awful pin-striped suits and shirts adorned with little bow ties have, thank the heavens, all but disappeared. Women don't feel they have to emulate men in the boardroom anymore.

Delk: What characterizes women today is having choices. Rather than concentrating on one role, we can combine many roles. We are mothers and grandmothers but at the same time have careers we enjoy and that sustain us. In the 1970s and 1980s, women struggled so hard to assert their rights that they often developed a certain edge, a certain hardness. I think we've had a chance to reframe that, and there's a softer feeling about who we are as women of the 1990s.

Anderson: But along with more choices comes more responsibility. Women face enormous challenges in managing their time-at home, at work and in the community. We now have the opportunity to become, in a sense, both who our mothers were and who our fathers were, but those choices have their price.

Q-What are your impressions of how things are different for women today than they were?

Fuller: The women's movement did us both good and harm. While we found an answer to the question, `I'm John's wife and Jane's mother, but who am I really?' I think we created new barriers in relationships with men that persist today.

Calafiore: The most significant change is that girls today expect to be in the workforce. They plan to train for a career or attend college with more in mind than finding a husband.

Anderson: And their aspirations are uncomplicated by considerations of not being able to pursue career dreams because of their sex. In contrast, although I always knew what I wanted to do, I suffered constant fear and self-doubt as to whether I could be successful, as a woman and an African-American.

Delk: I ask my 7-year-old niece what she wants to be. She replies, `President of this here United States.' I ask her again, and she repeats the answer. I ask a third time and she says, `Why are you asking me again and again? Don't you think I can be president?' The other day, she said, `If you don't like president, how about Supreme Court judge?' While this is encouraging, I think we have to remember we are part of a social system that still keeps women out of certain places, and individual attitudes alone will not change the system.

Ran: An interesting case in point is the symphony orchestra, which until recently was essentially a male domain. Then there was the token woman, but once there were five, 10 or 15 on stage, women were no longer treated as trespassers. I was fortunate, growing up in Israel, where my desire to enter a predominantly male profession posed no problem. Nobody asked me, `Why do you want to be a composer when there are no female composers?' When I first came to the United States, the question came up again and again. Today, the three organizations I am involved with-the University of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony and the Lyric Opera-feature women in powerful positions. But I think in many ways the arts and academia have always been in the vanguard of important societal change.

Q-Do you think women as a class feel they are ahead or better off than they were a decade or two ago?

Fuller: I think we finally are moving toward a more egalitarian society, with the distinction between men's and women's work blurring, so in that respect we are ahead.

Anderson: That's true in the workplace, but to a much lesser degree at home. It is particularly challenging for women who pursue career areas that are new and non-traditional, but who still come home to more traditional responsibilities in managing the lives of their children and significant others.

Delk: One option women today are exercising is that of raising children without waiting for Mr. Right to come along. More and more women are establishing non-traditional families and relying on an extended support network.

Ran: I can't help feeling we are talking about a certain type of woman. What about those who have no choices?